Wow!  What a beautiful day!!  And it was so beautiful that I was a bit conflicted……do I go outside and enjoy it while working on my flagpole project (picture attached) or do I take a nap with my wife?  Don’t kid yourself, I didn’t think long……the nap was great too!

But it amazes me at how I watch Ben, and all little kids for all that matters, fight taking naps.  It really seems ridiculous at how brain damaged we are at that age.  To me, there is nothing like putting on some shorts and letting my head hit the pillow.  It refreshes me and rejuvenates me, and of all the things that the good Lord invented, I believe naps to be one of the more important ones.

It reminded me of when I was in seminary.  A lot of people used to comment at how I would faithfully spend a lot of time in the library.  If they just would have paid attention they would have noticed that it was only in the afternoons and only in the warmer months.  The library was air conditioned, and my dorm room wasn’t.  And although I never had a pillow, I want to confess that I never read a book in that same study carrel either.  I did get a lot of snooze time though, and it was WELL worth it!

So now I am up and refreshed and able to get a lot done.  It WAS a great day, and I enjoyed it.  Our occasional nap time is important to me, and I was very blessed to have it today!

Goodnight my friends and God Bless!

Tommy+

Desperate times call for desperate measures, for sometimes he is a great helper, but sometimes he is not.  And this morning, while working on the wiring for the flagpole, Viper was just in the way.  He followed me everywhere, whenever I turned around he was there.  Yes, he seemed lonely, yes he seemed needy, and yes, I still had a job to do.

Have you ever had one of those days when nothing seems to go right?  Well I am having a string of those in a row……physical and emotional pain, too much stress, and not too many windows of opportunity to escape it all.  It has been killing me.  AND, as if that were not bad enough, tonight, as I was sharing a bit with Father PT on the phone (I use a hands-free) I looked up to see the flashing lights……yes, I was pulled over.

The Sargent was more than nice, especially since I was clocked doing 45 in a SCHOOL ZONE right in front of him.  What our conversation included was how the car in front of me slammed on its brakes and almost came to a stop…..I thought with the abrupt stop he had broken down.  SO I WENT AROUND HIM.  He was speeding and had obviously seen the Sargent, and his the brakes.  My going around him probably saved him a ticket.  It was also was 4:20 and there were not a lot happening around the school at that time as the zone was expiring in 10 minutes.  So I apologized and told him what had happened…..and he believed me.  And he should have….it was the truth.

So the Sargent pulled me through a good window with a warning.  It was really one of the only highlights of the day.  Tomorrow however is a new opportunity.  I am just hoping and praying for a good night’s sleep!

Goodnight my friends and God Bless!

Tommy+

Tonight’s picture is of our family homework.  Ben brought home an assignment for all of us that was about “Tom Turkey” who needed to hide so he would not end up someone’s Thanksgiving dinner.  He needed a disguise and we were told to be creative.  SO……. Tom Turkey is pictured here in his DRESS BLUES as a UNITED STATES MARINE, just like Ben’s brother.  And it is Ben’s Thanksgiving tribute to Scotty for sure.  Scotty cannot see it, but we will show him in December when we see him.

And all this reminds me how very lucky I am to have a wife who is either desperate or severely challenged mentally.  I do not deserve a woman as talented or creative as she is, but holy crap, I am not complaining at all!  It was a great idea and I am glad she fought Ben away from his original idea, which was a ghost.  In all honesty, it is not just 5 year olds who are MORONS, it is pretty much ALL young Tirmans.  They all finish well, but the require A LOT of training.  (i.e. my brother Mike is now in law school).

But the whole thing reminds me of how very blessed I am…..because I am.  My life has made some MAJOR TURNS in these past few months and I am far the better for them.  I really see the Hand of God in them, because they all could be far more disastrous than the blessings I see them as for sure.  Sometimes the difference between winning and losing is just a hair, and this time I have won.  I am thankful for that.

And I will spend the rest of my life, every breath that I take, making sure I am doing all that I can…..to stay ahead.

Goodnight my friends and God Bless!

Tommy+ 

Well like just about everyone else, I awaiting the results of the elections.  Amanda and I voted early and only ONCE….as it is the law here in Indiana.  After all, this is not Illinois!!  But it is just 7pm here and I will be up hopefully until the election is called.  I DO HOPE it is tonight.

Voting is very important to me, and somehow it seems even more important now that we have a son in the Marine Corps.  He is doing his part and we are doing ours.  And I am proud really of us all.

And today was a great day for me to get started on the flagpole too.  After I had done my work for the day I went out and disassembled all the lights that currently shine on our house.  The pole (a 30 footer) is to be set about 40 feet from there and I had to figure out the wiring.  Two lights will be on a timer on the house from dusk to about 11pm and another will illuminate the flags (a US and a USMC) from dusk to dawn.  The sad part is power runs to other parts of the yard, and it was going to be both a chore AND expensive to run it to the place Amanda said it should be placed.

BUT MY WIFE IS A GENIUS!!!  As I dug the 3’x3′ and 3′ deep square for the cement, guess what I ran into??  Yep, right in very MIDDLE of the dig was the underground conduit for the power.  It made my day….it really did!!

So now all we need it the pole and the sleeve to cement in (along with all the extras).  But doing it on election day was pretty cool.

I am proud to be an American.  I am proud to have a son who is ALMOST a US MARINE and I will even be more proud to hoist Old Glory and the USMC flag up in my yard, every soon, for all to see!

Goodnight my friends and God Bless!

Tommy+

Amanda and I went out at 6:00am to vote this morning.  Living in a small town, it was our first opportunity to vote here as there was nothing to vote for in our town or district last election.  But as we came into our polling place, this is who we found……a real live POLL CAT.

I have to admit, he was impressive.  He just laid there in the middle of the room like a pylon.  People had to walk to the left and the right of him to get in and out.  He mostly just slept, but he did allow me to pet him.

He got up and walked over to the people who worked there and he had a major limp.  Apparently his leg had been injured quite some time as there was no evidence of any trauma other than the limp.  What was surprising however was to learn that he did not belong there at all.  He actually was just a neighborhood cat who decided to come in and get warm and get some attention.  Perhaps he was a feline “election observer,” but he had no badge.

The most important thing however was to VOTE.  We did and you should too.  This election is an important one, and I urge you to take part.

This is perhaps the most important election of our lifetime.

Tommy+

Yes, tonight’s picture is of Ben next to the scarecrow he and hos nanny worked so hard on.  I decided to find a pole and put it up today, in between work things, as a surprise.  It had been in our garage for over a week.

But they both loved it, as they should.  It was a labor of love for both of them.  And with all the stuff going on in our country and world right now it was nice to see a grandparent and grandchild do something so meaningful together.  It makes me miss doing things with my grandparents…..I miss them so much!!

But the scarecrow is spectacular and it fools even me, even after I put it up.  I have looked outside more than once and thought, “who’s that in my yard???”  It is pretty realistic.

The sad reality is however, we have no crops that need protecting.  Our garden was a victim of the drought, and of course not much grows in November anyhow.  But I will say, it is pretty cool to have the only scarecrow on the block.

And sometimes being the only one is enough.

Goodnight my friends and God Bless!

Tommy+

Oh sure I know that most people may think I am referring to the popular phrase “on” holiday, but in the words of that old pharaoh in the movie “The Ten Commandments,” “so it is written, so it shall be done.!”  We were at Holiday!

Ben and I had a choice to make this afternoon.  We had a few choices too.  We could either go with his mom and nanny to a concert of choirs at Butler University (my Alma mater – Go BU!)  or we could stay home and selfishly watch the Bears play on TV.  But I imagined someone asking me this…..”How did the Bears play Sunday?”  To which I would have to answer, “Well I do not know because I decided to attend a show, by my own choice, of a variety of choirs singing.”  I know there is a beer commercial that talks abut turning in one’s “man card,” but there is really no such thing……kind of like seeing me at a choir concert when the words “hostage situation  are not involved.  I will GO SEE SOMEONE in such a show, but it is not on my bucket list for sure.

So the second choice was to drive them to the concert and then go visit my dad who lives about a mile from campus.  No, he is not a Bears fan, and yes he would have loved the choir concert as my brother and sister BOTH sang in some of those choirs (And yes, I WOULD go to see THEM because that would be enjoyable), but we never gave him the option.  Instead I asked if Ben could come and see him which he LOVES.  And Ben, remarkable as it seems, decided that the concert was not for him either as he wanted to go see his grandpa.

And I probably could have caught the game at his house, but grandpa wanted to go someplace…..Holiday Park!  And it was spectacular too.  It had about the largest playground of any I had seen and Ben was a nut on just about every piece of it. I decided to post tonight’s picture rather than any on a swing or slide or anything like that, because Lord knows I have posted tons of that.  Plus, Ben guessed that my dad was 100, so with that information I may not have him around long and need to post all the ones I can of him!

But the bottom line was that it was a lot of fun (for everyone but my sister Anna who was studying all afternoon!!).  It went by far too quick.

And the Bears ended up winning anyway……by 31 points!  Great day!

Goodnight my friends and God Bless!

Tommy+

Sure, the picture is from tonight.  It was taken in the men’s restroom at Meijer and is yet another bacon reference, as if the world needs another.  This one is what someone wrote on the hand dryer over the drawing for people who cannot read.  The drawing indeed does look like you put your hand under it and it dispenses bacon.  But two things made me believe that it was not going to be true.  One, it was the bathroom at the Meijer, and then two, if it really were true I would imagine I might run into Father PT there.  It turned out to be a hand dryer……the crappy kind too.  I used it for just a minute and then wiped my hands on my pants as I left the bathroom.

But why am I posting about the hand dryer in the Meijer bathroom?  Well because tonight it was Amanda and I’s intention to have “date night,” and like an automatic bacon dispenser we found out there was no such thing.  In fact, we were at the Meijer to get some supplies for St. Patrick’s, one of our churches that we were heading over to CLEAN.  (Yep, how romantic is that?)  So date night…..no such thing as well, at least for tonight.  Ben is at a sleepover and you would think we could do better than that.  And the real tragic part is that the vacuum at the church was well past Last Rites too.  So we didn’t even get to finish!

But the truth is, I appreciated the help.  I have been the primary cleaning crew for St. Patrick’s since it came into its own building, and to be honest, she is a bit more talented at such things than I am.  And since it was date night, who am I to deny the girl a good time?

So now we are at home and exhausted.  Daylight Savings Time “falls back” tonight and now I will need to be at Church an hour early to tell people the time changed and to come back in an hour.  AND, I also will need six additional weeks to get used to the time change……I hate it.  But at least we are finished for the day.

I am just thankful for the day…..even if that dang thing only dries hands.

Goodnight my friends and God Bless!

Tommy+

Today was the “Monster Mash”at Lapel Elementary School, and Ben went in a monster costume made with love by his mom and his nanny…..neither one incidentally are monsters themselves.  And the costume, as you can see, was a hit.  It had horns, three eye balls, and sucky octopus thingys all over.  On the back were spikes and spots.  He was a total sight!

But he went to school and joined all the other monsters, as this apparently is a Lapel Elementary tradition.  We love where we live, particularly in that there is often not a lot going on….the big city it ain’t!  But that’s what made it so cool.  Because after our grill caught on fire (yep it did) and I put it out (yep, I did that too) with a fire extinguisher (now I need a new one) we had to go out for dinner.  But we met a young lady there who was picking up some food and when she saw the costume she asked Ben if he was a kindergarten student at Lapel Elementary.  How did she know?  She has had TWO monsters of her own…..and the youngest is now in 3rd grade there!

Ah yes, tradition.  Without it, where would we be?  And that is a big part of why I love living in Indiana, and small town Indiana especially!!  No we are not New York, but we really wouldn’t want to be.  Here people know one another, they chat with each other, and the life is much slower in terms of pace.

Yes, the Monster Mash is about as edgy as it gets here. Yet it is still way over the top for me.  Let’s remember I was born and raised in this great state……..and I am not all city-fied with monsters and things like the currently popular Zombie Apocalypse.  I like my life a lot more laid back.  Let’s remember that where I live rush hour is defined only by how many tractors are out on the road.

Goodnight my friends and God Bless!

Tommy+